Design Nomenclature / Composition
Vanishing point
Also called VP
This entry has not been translated yet and is shown in English.
The point on the picture plane where the projections of one set of parallel lines meet — the image of their shared direction at infinity. Every set of parallels has one. Sets parallel to the ground plane have theirs on the horizon line; vertical sets vanish only if the picture plane is tilted.
In practice
Not 'the point where things disappear'. It belongs to a direction, not to the scene, and a single honest drawing routinely has more than three.
Not to be confused with
- Horizon lineThe line at the viewer's eye height on the picture plane, holding the vanishing points of every set of horizontal parallels. It is set by vantage, not by the landscape: it sits at eye level whether or not any horizon is visible, and everything at eye height meets it.
- Linear perspectiveA geometric construction projecting a three-dimensional scene onto the picture plane from one fixed eye point, so that parallel lines converge at vanishing points on a horizon set at eye height. Formalized by Brunelleschi and Alberti in the fifteenth century. It is a drawing system, not a description of vision.